Barcelona: American chipmaker Qualcomm plans to sharpen its focus on driving Internet of Things (IoT)
technology through collaborations with startups to develop use cases
for consumers and industries in India, besides working with local and
international handset players to bring out more 4G LTE feature phones in
the country.
“You will see us spend more time on IoT,” Jim Cathey, president, Asia Pacific & India, Qualcomm International, told ET on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress.
Cathey said that the introduction of the 5G
technology in India would really benefit IoT business. “That will
benefit India in the beginning because the government will step up and
they would want that to be successful because it will help the
communities. The local governments would decide whether they want the
use to be a smart lamp post or a smart meter,” he said.
The San
Diego-based company is working with Indian telecom operators and
infrastructure players for testing of 5G network technology and devices.
Cathey said that the intense competition among Indian telcos would
drive the 5G related developments, along with the government’s support.
“There’s
a tremendous amount of competition right now with the carriers… 5G is
that avenue which will finally differentiate,” he said.
In India,
Reliance Jio Infocomm, the 4G new entrant, has become the first telco
to launch pan-India narrow-band IoT network in partnership with Samsung.
It is working with a number of vendors and companies to drive IoT use
cases. The country’s leading telco, Bharti Airtel, too, is working on
launching consumer IoT products, having already launched various
enterprise IoT services.
Cathey said that for the next couple of
years Qualcomm hopes to enable masses to have access to 4G LTE through
low-cost feature phones and smartphones developed by local and
international handset players.
Asked whether low-cost Android Go
smartphones would hamper the LTE feature phone growth in India, Cathey
said, “The LTE feature phones are not done yet and can still have a long
life. That market is enormous with the number of consumers that have
feature phones right now, so the growth will continue.”
For Qualcomm, the 205 mobile platform that powers JioPhone has been driving volume sales for the company.
Reliance
Jio’s 4G feature phone, JioPhone, made the telco India’s top feature
phone vendor in the last quarter, with sales of a total of 10 million
units. Besides, HMD Global, the maker of Nokia-branded handsets, has
launched Nokia 8110 4G feature phone and it plans to introduce the
device in India around May this year.
(The reporter was in Barcelona to cover the Mobile World Congress at the invitation of Qualcomm.)
